Fritz Gustav Anton Kraemer was a German-American military educator and advisor.
Background
Kraemer was born in Essen, Germany, the eldest child of Jewish parents Georg Kraemer (born Berlin 1872, died Theresienstadt 1942) and Anna Johanna (Jennie) Kraemer, née Goldschmidt (born Essen 1886, died Washington District of Columbia 1971) and studied at the famous Arndt Gymnasium in Berlin, the London School of Economics and the Universities of Geneva and Frankfurt before earning a doctorate in law at the University of Frankfurt in 1931 and a doctorate in Political Science at the University of Rome in 1934.
Education
London School of Economics.
Career
During most of the 1930s he was Senior Legal Advisor to the League of Nations at the League’s Legal Institute in Rome. He was drafted and became a United States. citizen as an inductee and joined the United States Army in April 1943 ("with two Doctors of Philosophy and one monocle") as an infantryman in the 84th Infantry Division (the "Railsplitter"). Kraemer fought in the Battle of the Bulge and in the battles of the Ruhr and Rhineland, earning a Battlefield Commission and a Bronze Star in the liberation of his former homeland.
He left active duty in 1948 and retired from the Army Reserve in 1963 with the rank of lieutenant colonel.
In 1961 Kraemer also discovered Alexander Haig, and in 1969 Kraemer recommended Haig as the Military Assistant to then National Security Advisor Kissinger. Sven Kraemer, Fritz G. A. Kraemer"s son, also served in the Nixon-Kissinger National Security Council.
Thus Kraemer became the sine qua non of an influential network in President Richard Nixon"s White House circle. During his time at the Pentagon, he also influenced Secretaries of Defense James R. Schlesinger and Donald Rumsfeld.
A graduate of the United States. National War College, Kraemer advised, taught, and inspired generations of officers, officials, American Presidents, as well as private citizens.
Kraemer died at the age of 95 on September 8, 2003, in Washington, District of Columbia, and was buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery on October 8. He was honored by former Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger and his former students Henry Kissinger and Alexander Haig.